5S Floor Marking

5s floor marking is a concept which is recommended to help improve the safety and efficiency of any factory or other manufacturing facility.  The idea is that the floors of a factory should be clearly marked to convey valuable information to anyone traveling through the area.  While there is no set guideline indicating exactly how the floor should be marked most facilities use marking tape or paint.  The 5s floor tape is often recommended because you can put down new tape or make adjustments more quickly and easily than with paint.

Reasons to Mark Floors

There are many benefits you can get from having a well marked floor in these types of facilities.  In almost all cases the primary benefit is the increased safety you will have when your floors are marked in this way.  If, for example, you use red floor tape to mark any areas where people walking through the area may be in danger from moving machinery this can help people avoid those areas unless they are supposed to be in them.

Yellow floor tape is often used to alert people to hazards such as vehicles which often travel in a specific area or other types of potential dangers which may or may not be around.  Green tape might be placed on the floor to indicate a path to an emergency exit or other safe area.  There are many other colors you can choose from, or even use another type of floor marking to help improve your facility.

Setting a Standard

When working to improve the safety of any facility there are few things which are more important than having standards throughout the business.  If you’ve only got one facility then you want to make sure everyone is aware of what the different floor markings mean and ensure that anyone who is using these markings are following the same guidelines.  This is a fairly simple process which involves limited training and time to help ensure everyone is on the same page.

When you’ve got multiple facilities either on the same large campus or even spread out across large geographic areas you’ll still want to coordinate with the facilities manager of each location.  In many cases people will visit from one place to another and having the same standards for how 5s floor marking is used can be very important.  Most of the time it just takes a quick phone call between the two managers of the facilities to agree on one set of standards which can then be implemented in both locations.

Figuring out exactly which colors or widths of tape, or other 5s approved floor markings, you want to use is typically the easiest part of the job.  Once that’s settled you need to take the time to identify each area that needs to be marked and which type of markings they need.  In most facilities you’ll want to include area managers or supervisors to help ensure there are no dangers or hazards that are missed when marking the area.  Keep a detailed list of each of the areas and make sure the floor marking is always clearly visible to everyone who enters your facility.

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